Page 203 - DEDU505_TEACHER_EDUCATION_ENGLISH

Unit 22: Meaning, Nature and Strategies of Teacher Controlled Instruction

A teacher can effectively modulate his voice by acquiring mastery of these components. The Notes
teacher should modulate his voice according to that he wants to communicate to the students.
That is to say, a lecture is always more effective when the teacher lays proper stress on various
words and phrases.
One of the main characteristics of lecture method is that it is based on one-way communication.
A major problem that a teacher faces during lecluring is to sustain the attention of the sutdents.
He can overcome this problem by acquiring competence in the skill of stimulus variation. This
breaks down montony and facilitates students' learning. The skill of stimulus variation has eight
components. A brief description of these components is given as follows:
(i) Movements: While lecturing, the teacher should not stand at one place continuously, but
should change his position at short intervals. This is so because if the students have to look
continuously towards the teacher standing in one position, their eyes get tired; this in turn
causes loss of attention.
(ii) Gestures: Gestures consist of movements of hand, head, eye and facial expressions, for
expressing or illustrating an idea, an emotion or a feeling. Depending on the purpose, the
tcacher can decide whether a gesture is to be made by the hand, head or eye, or through a
combination of two or more of these simultaneously.
Gestures are helpful in making verbal communication effective. The teacher can make use
of gestures to draw attention, to emphasise the importance of a particular point or idea, to
illustrate feelings, to indicate shapes, sizes and movements of objects.
(iii) Modulation of voice: The components of 'modulation of voice' have already been discussed.
It is sufficient to state here that appropriate modulation of voice by the teacher is helpful in
sustaining students, attention. This is so because the use of voice without any variation
induces monotony among students, resulting in loss of attention,
(iv) Focusing: Focusing behaviours are of three types. A brief description of each is given below:
• Verbal focusing: It is used for securing attention of the students through statements such
as 'Look at the diagram/table/figures', 'Listen to me carefully; I am going to describe an
important feature', 'Watch what happens when red litmus paper is placed in an alkaline
solution', etc.
• Gestural focusing: The teacher secures attention of his students through certain gestures.
Examples of gestural focusing are underlining of important words or statements written
on the blackboard, pointing out important features of a diagram; figure and graphic
presentation, with a point.
• Verbal-cum-gestural focusing: In this type of focusing, the teacher makes use of both
verbal statements and gestures for drawing attention of the students to the important
points. Pointing towards the diagram while saying 'Look at the diagram carefully' is an
example of verbal-cum-gestural focusing.
(v) Pausing: In the context of teaching, pausing means deliberate silence for a short interval
introduced during lecturing. The teacher introduces pause(s) to draw attention of the students
to something important.
(vi) Audio-visual switching: For making his lectures interesting and to sustain student's attention,
the teacher may shift from one medium to another after appropriate intervals.
For example, after delivering a talk for some time, a teacher may show slides or a video
programme to illustrate his talk. This may again be followed by a lecture. Such a procedure
ensures that one medium is not used continuously because it leads to monotony and thus
distruction.
(vi) The skill of explanation: During the course of lecturing the teacher has to make clear the
meaning of terms, concepts, situations, etc. Again, he has to describe objects, procedures,
processes, etc. Still again, he has to provide explanations, based on cause-effect relationship.
Explanation is thus a skill that affects the quality of teacher's communication through verbal
medium. You should, therefore, acquire competence in the use of this skill.

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